It's a strange week when it comes to spotlight reviews with a lot of movies coming in pairs.
We have a pair of Ben Affleck releases, a pair of Westerns from the Centennial Collection, a pair of Philip K. Dick releases, a pair of World War II films, a pair of stand upconcert DVDs.
We even have a spotlight review featuring twins.
Besides that quirk of fate, there were a few releases that were contenders for the DVD Pick of the Week, including Terminator 2 - Judgement Day - Skynet Edition, True Blood - Season One, A Bug's Life - Blu-ray, all of which are coming on Blu-ray.
In fact, the only contender for DVD Pick of the Week that is actually on DVD is The Guild - Season Two.
That said, the best on this week's list is A Bug's Life - Blu-ray, and it is this week's DVD Pick of the Week.
With all the double-shots, it comes as no surprise that this week's list had to be split into two, while the second page can be seen here.
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Despite numerous new releases that charted this week, seven in fact, Alvin and the Chipmunks remained in top spot on the DVD sales chart. It's rare for a film to repeat on top of the charts, but Alvin was able to do so despite a 72% drop-off from its opening and added 872,000 units and $14.38 million in spending. This lifts its total to 4.02 million units / $66.34 million making it the third best selling DVD of the year so far.
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Like on the sales chart there were plenty of new releases. However, there was a new number on film on the rental chart as There Will Be Blood opened in first place with $8.54 million. I did find it strange that a critically acclaimed, Oscar winning movie would do better on the rental charts than the sales charts. Usually this happens when people want to try before they buy, but this doesn't seem the type of movie that would happen with.
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It was a good week for top-notch releases with plenty that are worth picking up. But there were two films that were obvious choices for DVD Pick of the Week: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Adventures of Baron Munchausen. In both cases, I would recommend the Blu-ray versions over the DVD. (On a side note, there were a few late spotlight reviews this week, and next week there will be a few more. Hopefully I will catch up by then, but there's always a chance that more screeners will arrive late in the meantime.)
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Bee Movie slipped to sixth place this weekend with $14.34 million on 4820 screens in 49 markets for a total of $131.97 million. This includes a first place opening in South Korea where it earned $1.96 million on 334 screens over the weekend and $2.30 million in total, but this is not a particularly strong start.
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Alien vs. Predator: Requiem opened in sixth place internationally with $16.43 million on 1877 screens in 20 markets. The film opened in second place in Germany with an impressive $4.64 million on 553 screens, while it debuted in fourth place in Australia with $1.86 million on just 182 screens over the weekend and $2.95 million since Boxing Day.
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Bee Movie returned to the charts in sixth place with $6.71 million on 1288 screens in 11 markets for an early international total of $19.43 million after a month of release. This includes a pair of first place debuts in Spain and Mexico. In the former it earned $2.81 million on 421 screens while in the latter is earned $2.60 million on 389 screens. While Spain is the larger marker, I thought the family friendly nature of Mexico would give it the edge. Even so, there are great openings for the film.
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Lions for Lambs climbed a spot to sixth place with $4.34 million on 2453 screens in 53 markets for a total of $25.97 million, while only managing $1 million or more in one market this past weekend, ($1.40 million on 390 screens during its sixth place debut in France). It opens in Italy later this month and Japan in the spring of '08, but there's almost no chance the film will show a profit at this point. Normally one movie losing money isn't a big issue because the studio can rely on one or two monster hits to pay for their misses, (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made enough money to pay for the entire budgets of half-a-dozen misses for Warner Bros. this year, and that's before the home market). However, United Artists is a newly relauched studio and they don't have a war chest built up from past victories. Stumbling out of the gate like this hurts.
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Elizabeth: The Golden Age nearly reached the top five with $5.79 million on 1579 screens in 12 markets for a total of $21.80 million. This includes a first place, $1.89 million opening on 470 screens in Russia, while the film added $933,000 on 394 screens in the U.K. for a total of $8.40 million so far.
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It was another tough week at the box office. No film missed Thursday's prediction by a significant margin, but there was an overall weakness. This pushed the box office to $104 million, down 8% from last weekend. More importantly it was down 28% from the same weekend last year. It is getting close to the time to panic. Granted, this year is safe but there's little evidence that this slowdown at the box office, which has lasted almost the entire fall, is going to end now that the Holidays have started. The only good news is that last Thanksgiving was a terrible weekend for new releases.
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For the first time in a while we have a Hollywood film releases day-and-date internationally in more than 40 markets, so it comes as a huge surprise that the number one film this weekend is Om Shanti Om.
It is true that Bollywood films have been performing better as of late and the overall market is typically slow during the fall, but earning $18.17 million on 1,048 screens in 17 markets is still a fantastic start by any measure.
Most of that figure came from India, but unfortunately that market generally doesn't release final numbers till much later in the week, if not the following week.
We have read reports of record openings on the vast majority of the 600 screens it opened on in its native market, and expectations are for strong legs there.
Meanwhile, the film placed seventh in the U.K. with $1.07 million on just 52 screens for a per screen average of over $20,000.
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There was little to cheer over the weekend, as all four of the new releases missed expectations, some by substantial margins.
This left the overall box office struggling with $113 million over the weekend, down 16% from last weekend and 11% from the same weekend last year.
This means the streak of year-to-year growth ends at one.
On the other hand, had the four wide releases mere met expectations, the overall box office would have been within a rounding error of last year.
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With the streak of year-to-year declines finally over, the winter holiday season is looking to start earning back some of the loses from October. The good news is, this weekend there are three films that should top $20 million at the box office compared to just one that did last year. Bad news, that one film was Borat, which earned more than $28 million and there's a chance no film will replicate that performance this time around.
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After a horrible October, we finally get to November and the start of the holiday season.
Just like the summer season doesn't officially begin until Memorial Day, the winter holiday season doesn't officially begin until the Thanksgiving long weekend.
However, studios are trying to stretch the lucrative box office season as long as possible and the holiday-like releases start during the first weekend of the month.
This means practically every weekend this month, there's at least one potential $100 million movie. There are also a few that might be Oscar contenders, although not as many as I had expected.
In fact, so far Award Season has been particularly slow, but at least this means there should be more buzz surrounding the upcoming films as the race is wide open.
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Quite a few full sites launched this week, but as is the case most times, there were pretty Spartan at the moment and it will take a few more updates before we can tell if they are award-worthy or not. That said, it was a site for a movie that opens this week, Lars and the Real Girl - Official Site, that won the top prize as it finished adding all the material marked coming soon this week.
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Another big list of movie sites, but not much in the way of top-notch entries. For a movie site to be an award winner, I expect it to have all of the usual features, extras like clips, something interactive like a game, and background sound and animation. The film that best exemplifies that criteria is Stardust - Official Site, which is the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
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The list returns to its normal busy self, in fact, we have several sites making their first appearance this weekend. In addition, there were a couple of older sites that saw massive updates, including this week's winner, Charlie Bartlett - Official Site.
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